Entrepreneurial students do battle in 'Ice Cream Wars'
Friday November 17 2010
To celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week, students from local colleges battled it out for the title of virtual ice-cream seller of the South. The winning team were presented with their award by finalist of BBC1’s hit TV show The Apprentice 2008, Claire Young.
On Friday 19 November, business-minded students from Itchen College and Taunton’s College competed for the top spot in ‘Ice Cream Wars,’ organised by Southampton Solent University.
The winning team from Taunton’s College -Niall Voller, Jack Oughton and Christopher Millard - made more than £28,000 profit over three years after deciding to pitch in a playground.
Throughout November, University staff and students have been advising the teams on strategies and helping them sharpen up their sales techniques at a series of interactive activities. Ahead of the big day, the teams worked on promotional campaigns; focusing on name, visual concept and any other ideas that will make them stand out from the crowd.
On Friday, the teams were presented with a list of scenarios - including weather forecasts and pitching positions - and asked to make on-the-spot decisions on when and where they could make the most money.
Claire Young, who describes herself as passionate about promoting enterprise to young people, announced the winning ice-cream sellers and said,
“Days like these are crucial to prepare students for the business world after education. Coming along and getting involved in these activities shows they are proactive and will take away with them vital transferrable skills.”
Ice Cream Wars is just one of a series of events that took place across the University to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week. Eighteen entrepreneurial Solent students took part in ‘Dynamo Challenge’, a two-day inter-university Enterprise boot camp. Earlier in the week Rod Cousens, the CEO of global gaming company, Codemasters, gave students advice on business success.
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